AFRICA: Hundreds of people, many of them children, are still missing in Lagos following the weekend explosion of a munitions store in the city, the Nigerian Red Cross said yesterday.
The Red Cross has registered more than 3,500 people, mostly children, and returned them to their families since the explosion on Sunday, spokesman Mr Patrick Bawa said.
"Several hundred are still missing, but we are checking through the figures to see whether there has been any duplication of names," he added.
The spokesman denied a report credited to him by an international news agency that the Red Cross was searching for hundreds of children believed possibly to be held against their will by security forces or individuals. "We have no reason to believe anyone is being held against their will," Mr Bawa told the AFP news agency.
More than 700 people died in a stampede and thousands were displaced after the catastrophic explosion of the main army munitions store in Lagos.
The explosion could lead to a dangerous extension of Nigeria's political tension to the military, political analysts say.
President Olusegun Obasanjo's government, plagued by disasters and economic woes, is hobbled by Nigeria's worst political crisis since military dictatorship ended in 1999.
A dispute over a new electoral law has led to a virtual political cul-de-sac ahead of critical elections next year, the first to be supervised by civilian authorities.
"This latest disaster shows the president is not paying attention to the fact that things are unravelling," commentator and publisher Mr Pini Jason said of the blasts at Ikeja barracks.
"The military will be demoralised. They don't even have the wherewithal to face their professional calling," he added.